Uprising: Lucha Libre Workrate Report 1/25/14

There's a Pro Wrestling Revolution show in SF in a couple weeks, with Timothy Thatcher vs. Blue Demon Jr. as the main event. Oliver John is also on the card so this kind of acts as a sneak preview of what I'll see if I decide to attend (even though this match was from 7/28/12). This match may also serve as a move-for-move blueprint of the singles match I might see. It would not stun me at all to find out Blue Demon Jr. has exactly one singles match that he works with gringos. Oliver John is a good worker but Thatcher is clearly superior in my book, so if this match turns out decent I'd have high hopes the Thatcher singles could be better.


1. Oliver John vs. Blue Demon Jr.

Demon always does a bunch of rudo things even though he's a constant tecnico, similar to Hogan always using stuff like eye rakes when he's the ultimate good guy. Here we immediately start with Demon slapping John on a clean break and the crowd actually reacts like they're totally confused. John rolls to the floor and in an awesome moment threatens to slap a kid across the face, while another kid belts John in the head with his vuvuzela. He honestly could not have planned that better. Demon is capable enough on the mat and doing leverage exchanges that the opening stuff is compelling. He also is actually showing ass here which normally doesn't happen. I knew as soon as I wrote that stuff about Demon's exchanges being compelling it would bite me in the ass. Immediately after typing that Demon goes into the loooooong portions of his singles matches where he slowly gets his opponent into position for holds that don't look very painful, and then just lies in each of them for minutes at a time. John tries his damndest to make them look dangerous but nobody is buying it. We also go into our long stretch of the announcers talking about referee Tom Castor, who is a referee you would never at all notice if they didn't constantly point out that he's just doing his job. Ending is a rushed mess with the other members of La Migra running in, pulling out the ref, and John winning on a quick roll up counted by a second ref. John has a lot of personality so in the right spot he can look really good, but Demon was giving him next to nothing to work with, so this was what it was.

Still on the fence on whether or not I'll go see them live in a couple weeks. It's only $10, it's about a mile away from one of my absolute favorite restaurants (Papito!!), Thatcher is probably my favorite Bay Area worker, and the show also has Super Crazy and Willie Mac. Buuuuuttttt based on my previous live experience with them, the show will be a neverending hype show for a local hispanic radio station (so many "we'll give a free t-shirt to the loudest section" moments, even during the matches!), and also for every guy I'm excited to see live there's a dud like Ricky Romero or Blue Demon working opposite him. What to do what to do.